Final Beyond The Still Winner Announced – next: A Collaborative shoot with all 7 winners location TBD

Congrats to Tony Leech for winning the final chapter of the Beyond The Still Contest – and I wholeheartedly congratulate every single one of entrants for entering the contest as well!

I appreciate how much time those of you who entered put into these projects – we all know how many days/weeks it can take to pull a 4 minute short together and the dozens of favors we have to call in to make it work!

At this point I’m working with Canon/Vimeo/Grey on the next and final chapter where all 7 finalists and I will join together to shoot the final film – the location is yet to be determined but the target date is mid-October. As soon as details are announced I’ll be contacting all of the winners individually.

You can view all of the winners from each of the other 6 chapters here – or click on the links below:

More thoughts below – and the upcoming FINAL chapter shoot with all 7 winners:

Now I can share with you a bit of what I could not during the running of the competition (as a judge I was asked to stay as neutral as possible): Personally I was rooting for the story to take many different twists and turns, diverging from the initial chapters into unforeseen directions. I know a few of the people on the Vimeo forums were calling for such a turn of events – and many of them tried valiantly to do so with your entries. Though ultimately this was a democratic process, and the plot/story line developed organically. It wasn’t the judges place to “direct” this competition’s path. In fact at no point did the judges ever “compare notes” or discuss their favorites. We each individually judged the entries based on 5 individual factors (giving each a score) and that lead to the finalists for each chapter – the Vimeo community then voted on each winner, of course. And regardless of where the plot ended up – the vimeo community chose their winners well, as evidenced by the seven fantastic winning short films and the filmmakers behind them.

As many of you know, filmmaking is not only about having an original idea, but also about executing it elegantly – something all of the finalists did in what turned out to be a very competitive contest.

I want to also thank all of the judges who each put in well over 10-20 hours in reviewing the hundreds of films that were entered over the 7 month period. I know that they too are very proud to have been part of this truly interesting social networking / online film community experiment. When this started we never knew if the competition would last over the full 8 months and if it would be a success. I think its now evident that it has been a success on a number of levels – and it’s not over yet…

Now comes the fun– Pulling 7 very talented people together to work on a final chapter and tying this all together. I honestly can’t wait to work on that final chapter – and to share it with everyone in what I guess will be a little over a month from now (that of course hasn’t been set in stone – so don’t hold me to it just yet… we’ve just begun to work on the final logistics as we now know the final winner and where the story has left off, and can determine how (and where) the final chapter will culminate!)

Again – congratulations to everyone – and a huge thanks for the hundreds – if not thousands of hours – all of the people who entered collectively put into making these wonderful short films!

It was a real test of my camera in low light and I learned a lot on the technical side of film making. This was one of my first films working with an experienced crew as well, and I benefited enormously as a director from that. As my DP said, “I already feel like a victor no matter the outcome.”

The entries were great and the overall quality of the contestants was amazing. Congrats to all the finalists and entrants.

Like Torrey, shooting our film for The Story Beyond the Still was a great experience for everyone involved.

And yes, what an experiment this has been. I’ve found Vimeo to be an incredible community of talented filmmakers, and Beyond the Still has brought that community together in a way that has been awe-inspiring. It’s given people a focal point for discussion, creativity and collaboration. A good example: one of our crew members, Mark Relf, is someone I met through Vimeo. When he said he would like to help out on my next shoot, guess what that shoot was.

So thank you, Vincent, for truly investing yourself in this contest. It’s been an honor to participate. Looking forward to collaborating with you on Chapter 8!